I decided to practice creating making large scale regional maps and try out some new techniques by tackling the map from one of my favourite novel and TV series, Westeros from Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO's Game of Thrones.

It's a hand-drawn map done in a combination of pencil, ink, colour pencil, and watercolour. If you want to know the process I took to create this map in detail, please refer to my WIP thread in Regional/World Mapping:

Overall I'm pretty satisfied at how it turned out, still need to work on somethings but none the less I think it does the job. Questions, criticism, and any other comments are all welcome. :)

Domino44

12-17-2013, 12:02 AM

I like this map.

Lingon

12-17-2013, 06:21 AM

This turned out awesome! The colors are really nice, lifted the map a lot from the b/w version I think. I'll see if I can rep you :)

If I'd give any criticism, it'd be about the labels and the scan/photo. When labeling by hand, I think the letters need to be given the same care as all other elements. Which is why I label all my maps digitally :P Much easier that way, though I am working on my handwriting too. Anyway, I also feel that the blurriness hides some detail on this map, the city icons specifically, and make the smallest labels unreadable… but you are probably already aware of that ;)

Great job!

A.Woods

12-17-2013, 01:44 PM

Thanks for your input once again Lingon. And yes I realize I have to work on my labels, I think I rushed through some of them and that's why some of them ended up a bit wonky. In the future I'll try to plan out the labels a bit better and remind myself to take my time.

As for the photo, I realize the resolution isn't where I want it to be. I'd love to scan it but I simply can't find a scanner big enough to fit it. Do you have any experience scanner larger maps? Best idea I can come up with is scanning it in pieces and splicing them together in PS, but even then I'm worried it'll end up looking weird. Maybe then I could add some digital titles/labels.

Thanks again, and what do you mean by rep me?

Midgardsormr

12-17-2013, 02:46 PM

Rep is the forum software's means of allowing users to show appreciation to one another. Other forums call it karma or +1's, or the like. Rep accumulates and helps to indicate which posters are highly regarded by the community. You'll notice a small green rectangle below your title (Guild Apprentice). That's your rep meter. If you hover your mouse over it the tooltip shows the numerical value of the rep you've received so far.

To give rep to another user, click the little star icon to the right of "Blog this Post". Making a comment is optional but appreciated.

The more rep you have, the greater the value of the rep you give to others.

You might be able to get a large format image scanned at a Kinko's or other print shop. I'm not sure how common scanners of that sort are, but I know they exist.

A.Woods

12-17-2013, 03:06 PM

Ah, gotcha, thanks for the heads up Midgard. I'm still fairly new to the forum, even though I joined in 2010 I had been inactive for quite sometime. Thus far the community has been great and anything I can do to help out let me know!

Yeah I was thinking maybe they'd be able to do that, there's a kinko's down the street from my place in the city. I think I'll head there tomorrow and see what they can do.